


So Sunder We

by reine_des_corbeaux



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Break Up, Character Study, F/M, Isolation, Partner Betrayal, abusive language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 05:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21113345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: Medea may not have the last laugh, but she will get the last word.





	So Sunder We

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tabacoychanel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabacoychanel/gifts).

From the moment she comes from Colchis, they call her _barbarian_, _sorceress, foreign, dirty, witch_. They watch her walking, and they sneer at her in her odd clothing, with her foreign ways and aloof hauteur. She is not an appropriate bride for Jason, but Medea doesn’t care. Let them mock her. She’s the daughter of a king, and she’s Jason’s wife. That’s enough for her. The dirty foreign witch married the hero, and the hero loves the dirty foreign witch, though she’s a murderer and a devotee of the goddess of the crossroads. They’ve run all the way to Corinth together, haven’t they? Didn’t she lead him safely back to welcoming harbors? They fled Colchis together. She killed her brother for Jason and his men, and she will kill for him again, if he so desires.

Tonight, though, there is no talk of killing in the familiarly unfamiliar darkness of their bed. Medea lies in Jason’s arms, running her fingers through his dark hair, memorizing the feel of the lines of his face. Her hands brush along the length of his neck, and she feels magic course beneath her skin, a magic half of spell-craft, half of love. And this is her new ordinary, and she regrets nothing. She doesn’t care that she is a barbarian in a land where everything is new and everyone acts so hatefully superior. And yet, this bare little room is what the Greeks call luxury. How they would have been mocked back home in Colchis. How her father would have laughed. But she feels glad enough in this plain bed, with the sea breezes rustling the curtains, and the fresh night air caressing her body. 

“Medea,” Jason says, illuminated in the weak glimmer of the starlight. “I have something to tell you.” 

“What, my love?” she asks. 

_This is contentment. This is home now. It will not change. We have children. I lost everything, but I also won. All is well. _

And Jason says the unbelievable. 

“I’m getting married.” 

Medea frowns. 

“You’re already married. Or have you forgotten that your wife lies in your bed beside you?” 

Jason sighs, exasperated. 

“I know I’m married to you. But you’re so, oh, you know.” 

She laughs then, to drown out the sudden roaring in her ears, the fury in her heart. Medea knows too well the words he wants to say. _Barbarian. Witch. Sorceress. Dirty foreign whore. Kinslayer. _She’s heard them from so many mouths that she might almost be unsurprised should Jason spew them. Almost. 

“I’m so what?” she asks, ready to hurt, ready for her heart to bleed at every wounding word. 

“Medea, you’re not expedient,” Jason says, and she fights back the tears. 

She could remind him of all she did for him, of all she gave up to help him on his way. She could try to kiss him into forgetting whoever his new wife is supposed to be. She could, she could, she could. There are so many coulds in her world now. But she throws them all aside in her grief-blind mind, and she can only ask a question. 

“Who is she?” 

Because Medea, daughter of a king though she may be, is only a pawn in this land, a child’s toy to be set aside like the childish indiscretion her marriage to Jason is. Her kingly father is no Greek king, and besides, Colchis would never take her back. It’s been too long, and though old wounds scab over, they leave scars. 

“Glauce, Creon’s daughter. She’ll be helpful to me.”  
“And I wasn’t?” Medea throws herself out of his arms, her voice caught helplessly in her throat. She pushes back the wave of bile and anger, hurling her words forward. “I killed for you, Jason. I bore you children. I gave my family up to follow you to a place where I have no names but insults, no kin to love me but you and our children. What can Glauce give you that I can’t? Could she be a better wife than me in any way?” 

Medea already knows the answer. Glauce is no witch. Glauce is not a foreigner. She will sit demurely at Jason’s side and offer guest-friendship on his behalf. She does not worship at the crossroads. She has never been, no matter how obliquely, a kinslayer. In all this, she is a better wife for Jason than Medea can ever be. Medea doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forgive her that. 

“I’m sorry,” Jason says, but he does not sound apologetic, and Medea, in that moment, wishes she never left Colchis, never hoped to trust. 

She ignores his apologies, and lies on one miserable, cold side of the bed, yearning for the golden years of the past as the light becomes grey in the predawn and the sea mist rolls up over the city like a miasma. In the true morning, she will pretend to wake and pretend that nothing is wrong. She will love her children, and fight down the gnawing ache in her guts that the sight of Jason now brings, keep it from warring with her love for him. 

But Medea cannot be a quiet, good wife any longer. Let the people sneer, for maybe they were right. She is a barbarian sorceress, and that is more than Jason deserves. Heroes get remembered, after all, but only because dirty foreign witches get things done. What has Glauce ever done for Jason? She tosses and turns until the sun is high above, love and anger warring in her brain. 

By the time Jason wakes in the morning, radiant as the sun, Medea is smiling again. But it’s a secret smile for herself and not for him. She will never again call Jason her hero. 

“I knew you’d understand.” Jason murmurs. He's still half asleep as she embraces him cooly in the scorching morning light. 

“Of course,” Medea says. 

Because Medea understands everything now, and Jason understands nothing. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the lovely prompt! I love Medea for all the same reasons you put in your letter, and so I had a wonderful time writing this! 
> 
> Title is from Shakespeare's _Henry VI, Part II_


End file.
